If Burnham Grammar School is on your child's list, preparation should be shaped around how this school actually selects — not generic 11+ advice. Burnham is a Buckinghamshire grammar, and every Bucks grammar admits pupils on the strength of one shared exam, the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test. Get familiar with that test's format, subjects and timing early, and the rest of your plan falls into place. This guide walks through exactly what Burnham looks for, what to practise, and a calm two-year build-up you can follow using free Quest Arena resources.
About Burnham Grammar School
Burnham Grammar is a mixed grammar serving south-east Buckinghamshire, sitting between Slough and Maidenhead. It is one of 13 state grammar schools across the county, and selection is by the shared Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test rather than a paper the school writes itself. That matters for preparation: you are practising for a countywide test, so the same core skills that qualify a child for Burnham also apply to the other Bucks grammars on your shortlist. Founded in 1957, it is a Foundation grammar with its own admissions authority, which means it publishes its own oversubscription criteria even though the entrance test is common to the county.
- Location: Burnham, Buckinghamshire
- Intake: Mixed
- Founded: 1957
- Type: Foundation Grammar
- Admissions test: Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test (GL Assessment)
You can read our full school profile for a fuller picture, and always confirm this year's dates and admissions policy on the official Burnham Grammar School website. For how Burnham sits alongside the other county grammars, see our grammar school directory.
How selection works at Burnham Grammar School
Burnham admits by the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, the single test used across The Buckinghamshire Grammar Schools consortium and now delivered by GL Assessment. Children sit it in mid-September of Year 6, at their own primary school where possible, and one result is shared across every Bucks grammar the family names on the local authority application. The exam is built from two papers that between them cover Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning, spatial reasoning, comprehension and Maths, drawing on skills built through Key Stage 2 up to about the Year 5 curriculum ceiling. It is multiple-choice and tightly timed, with separately-timed sub-sections rather than one long open paper, and answers are marked on a standardised sheet.
Because arrangements do change — CEM's separate paper 11+ was phased out from around 2023 and GL now supplies the Bucks papers — treat the school's own site and the county admissions pages as the authority for the current year. What does not change is the underlying skill set, so that is where your practice should go. Scores are age-standardised: a child's raw mark is converted to a scale where 100 is the average and roughly a 15-point spread separates typical bands, and younger, summer-born pupils receive an uplift so they are compared fairly with autumn-born classmates. The Bucks qualifying standard has typically been a standardised score of 121, though you should always confirm the current threshold rather than rely on a number from an old forum post.
Two children can sit the same paper, get the same raw score, and end with different standardised results simply because one was born in September and the other in August. That is the system working as intended, not a mistake — so there is no advantage in comparing raw marks with other families.
What to practise for this test
Because the Bucks test rewards broad ability rather than narrow trickery, spread practice evenly across the assessed strands and build the habit of switching quickly between them. The table below maps each strand to what it demands and where to practise it free.
| Strand | What it tests | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal Reasoning | Codes, letter sequences, hidden words, analogies, odd-one-out, closest-meaning and opposites, compound words, number series | Worksheets + reading |
| Non-Verbal & spatial | Series, matrices, analogies, reflections, rotations, cube nets and folding | Worksheets + drills |
| Comprehension | Reading a passage closely and inferring meaning under time pressure | Timed mocks |
| Maths | KS2 arithmetic, fractions, ratio, place value, measures, worded problems at pace | Worksheets + mocks |
- Verbal Reasoning: the widest net, and vocabulary is the single best predictor here — daily reading does more than any drill. Work through code-breaking, analogies and closest-meaning types one at a time until each feels routine.
- Non-Verbal and spatial reasoning: series, matrices, reflections, rotations and cube nets sit outside the national curriculum, so exposure and pattern-spotting practice matter more than clever tricks.
- Comprehension and Maths: read passages closely for inference, and solve KS2 maths at roughly a minute a question with no calculator.
Turn each of those into practice with our free tools: start with the worksheet library to shore up whichever strand a first paper exposes as weakest, add whole-paper timed mock papers to build stamina, then finish on centre-specific mocks matched to the Bucks format. If reasoning question types are new to you, our exam guides break each one down. Nothing here is gated — no account is needed to practise.
A realistic preparation timeline
The strongest candidates are made over two years of light, consistent work, not a panic sprint. Use this as a shape, and slot in the county's real registration and September test dates from the official site.
- Year 4 into the summer: daily reading across genres, times tables secure to 12×12, and mental-arithmetic games. No formal papers yet — this is the vocabulary-and-number foundation everything else stands on.
- Year 5 autumn: begin 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice with our free worksheets, introducing Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning question types one at a time so nothing feels unfamiliar later.
- Year 5 spring and summer: keep reading, widen vocabulary deliberately, and start one full timed mock paper a week. Review the errors far more carefully than the score — the mistakes are the lesson.
- Year 6 September: registration usually closes in the summer before the test, which is sat in mid-September — confirm the exact deadline early so you never miss it. In the final six weeks, switch to centre-specific papers in the Bucks format to rehearse pacing and the answer sheet.
Keep the load light and regular rather than heavy and occasional. Twenty focused minutes most days beats a two-hour Sunday grind that leaves a ten-year-old frustrated. If your child hits a wall on one strand, drop back to the worksheets for that topic before returning to full papers.
On the day and after
By test morning the academic work is done; the job now is composure. A child who has sat ten timed mocks at the kitchen table treats the real hall as the eleventh. Keep the night before ordinary — a normal bedtime, no last-minute cramming. On the day, make sure your child knows the practical drill: read each instruction, keep an eye on the section clock, and never stall on one hard question when marks are waiting further down the paper. Because sub-sections are separately timed, moving on quickly is a genuine skill worth rehearsing in advance.
Afterwards, results for the Bucks test are typically issued in mid-October, ahead of the secondary school application deadline. Qualifying is only the first step: a qualifying score means a child is eligible for a grammar place, not that a place is guaranteed, because oversubscribed schools then apply their own admissions criteria such as distance and catchment. If your child narrowly misses, Buckinghamshire runs a review and selection-panel route — check the school and county pages for how to request it and the timescale, and use our grammar school directory to keep a sensible spread of options open.
Frequently asked questions
What test does Burnham Grammar School use?
Burnham admits through the shared Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, sat in mid-September of Year 6 and now delivered by GL Assessment. It is a two-paper, multiple-choice, separately-timed test covering Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal and spatial reasoning, comprehension and Maths — not a paper Burnham sets on its own.
What score do you need to pass in Buckinghamshire?
The qualifying standard has typically been a standardised score of 121, on an age-adjusted scale so summer-born children are not penalised. Always confirm the current threshold on the official school or county admissions page rather than trusting an old figure.
How early should we start preparing?
A steady build from Year 4 — reading, tables and light reasoning practice — beats a Year 6 sprint. Formal timed papers are most useful from Year 5, with centre-format mocks in the last few weeks. Everything you need for that is free on Quest Arena.